page 289 - Long Walk Original Manuscript [LWOM_289.jpg]

The lessons he drew from the Indian freedom struggle were so devastating to the Crown case that every time he began with the statement "Wait, I tell you India", the prosecutor would protest "No, we don't want to hear about India anymore but about South Africa".

Ahmed Kathadra's next witness was accused number four, Stanley Lollan, a member of the national executive of the Coloured Peoples Congress and he was still giving evidence when Verwoerd announced that martial law would be lifted on 31st August 1960, on which date our lawyers returned. Their return was a real relief and was welcomed by all of us. Ours was something far more than a trial of legal issues between the Crown and a group of men charged with breaking the country's laws. It was a trial of strength between the people of South Africa and a minority of whites who monopolised power in the economic, political and social speres, and the outcome of the conflict would radically influence the future course of the struggle in our country.

In this situation is was proper that we should have the services of the most higly qualified jurists who would handle the technical side and enable us to fight to the finish. Seeing again the eight barristers lined up against the Crown team was indeed symbolic of the greatest struggle that was being fought outside the courts; the clash of ideas that runs through the history of South Africa, that becomes more bitter and sharp as the years pass by. Two of these barristers Bram Fischer and Vernon Berrange were more than legal men defending clients for a fee. They were members of the Congress movement and dedicated freedom fighters. The rest were liberals who fought against racial prejudice inside and outside the courts, even though their methods of doing so differed